As requested, a tribute to the TV heartthrob of the late '60s and '70s who got many of our youthful motors running. Here’s his TV Tome bio . . . other photos are very hard to come by. What’s with the internet?!
Last time I saw him was playing Blanche’s gay brother on The Golden Girls. One of those actors who seemed like a really nice guy . . . I see on imdb he’s still working.
Can’t speak to Mr. Markham’s sexiness, but I did go to private school with his son for a while. He was one of the reasons I went back to public school. Basically, the kid was a grade-A asshole who thought he was hot shit because his father is an actor.
Robin
MsRobyn, that’s not an uncommon phenomenon. I once met Christopher Lee’s (LOTR) daughter (she was visiting my school with some friends of mine) and she had an attitude because of her dad. I suppose that most of these kids grow out of it. There’s only so long you can ride on the coat tails of a famous parent.
Getting back to Markham—he looks the almost the same today as he did way back when! I saw him guest starring on some Grace Under Fire episodes and I thought, “Damn! How old is he? He looks like he’s in his 40s but he must be much older than that!” I think he was probably around 60 when he was on that show.
I also remember him from a pretty sad B-movie that he wrote or produced or something, called Neon City. Kind of a bad science fiction show, starring Michael Ironside with a long-haired wig. But Markham looked fabulous, as always!
I did a brief phone interview with Monte Markham about ten years ago for some cable-TV magazine. He was very nice. It took every ounce of my professionalism (two-and-a-half ounces, to be precise) not to say, “I so had the hots for you when I was twelve years old!”
Monte Markham . . . Ron Ely . . . James Brolin . . . Chad Everett . . . Ah, the Older Men of my pre-teen years!
I didn’t have the hots for him, but I do remember when he played both Arthur O’Connell’s son and dad in the 60s classic “The Second Hundred Years.” I don’t think anyone else watched that program.
I’ve long been a fan of Monte Markham’s. But did anyone see The New Perry Mason that he starred in? Jeez!!! How do you update Raymond Burr? I was embarrassed for him.
I did, Snake-Hips! (Love your name, btw.) The son was quite a prig and really hardly figured in the show much. O’Connell and Markham seemed to have quite a rapport, acting like two old-timers in a strange new world. Coupled with yosemitebabe’s report of how young he looks now, it makes you wonder if there’s a hoary portrait in the attic. Seems like he had a run of playing twins or doubles of some kind.
Anyone ever see the little chick-flick One Is A Lonely Number? He was really hot in that one and sent me on a life-long quest for a man who would slow-dance in stocking feet in the living room with me. (No luck so far.)
Over in the Carrie Snodgress Memorial Thread (which inspired this one, oddly), several of us were talking about how sexy he was in that show . . . I also vaguely remember him in a Mr. Deeds Goes to Town series. Here’s his imdb file; Jesus, he’s pushing 70!!
Looking at the iMDb file, his appearance in Grace Under Fire was '94, early '95. He was almost 59, almost 60, and he looked great. He was kind of cast as a possible romantic interest for Grace, who was in her 30s, and while they never got together (that I recall), he didn’t look to be “too old” for her at all. Quite attractive, as a matter of fact.
Damn. I’d like to see those episodes again.
I always thought of Monte Markam as I kind of made-for-TV Clark Gable. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
But any mention of Ron Ely sends me reeling back to MY childhood, sitting in front of the TV on a Saturday morning, wishing he was my daddy and wondering why I was feeling all funny inside.
Include me in the group that used to watch “The Second Hundred Years.” Wasn’t Markham also in some lame-o Perry Mason spin-off? I think I watched it once, and turned it off before it was over. Raymond Burr had to be Mason.
And God knows why, but I think I remember Markham as a brief love interest of Mary Richards on “The Mary TYler Moore Show.”
hmm - now that I’ve clicked on Eves’s link I see he was Perry Mason and on MTM.
Nope. He’s not doin’ it for me. The shape of his head is all wrong.
And I didn’t know Carrie Snodgress died. And I won’t have time to check out the thread until Monday. Bummer…
Omigosh, I had SUCH a crush on Monte Markham as a kid. I still think he’s gorgeous. Check out the made-for-TV movie “Death Takes a Holiday.” The Brad Pitt movie “Meet Joe Black” was basically a remake of this.
MM did do a lot of made-for-TV stuff. But I could never get enough of him. Even his voice is sexy.
I work in a call center (airline reservations) and spoke with his wife once. She was making reservations for him and I asked her “if this was the same actor that I had a crush on” and she admitted it was. So that’s one of my tremendous “brushes with greatness.”
Now that I think of it, there’s a little made-for-TV Sean Connery in there too.
Oh yeah, he was a hottie. But I don’t recall that anyone thought so at the time. Or did they? I thought it was just me, because he wasn’t traditional hot.
Not to hijack, but another hottie from those days was Roy Thinnes from General Hospital. I think he might have been referred to as the poor man’s Paul Newman. Hubba.
No, no—Ben Murphy was the poor man’s Paul Newman.
. . . Or was Ben Murphy the poor man’s Roy Thinnes?
Ben Murphy = Alias Smith and Jones. Cute cute cute. Adorable and cute. And definitely a Paul Newman-esque type for this TV show, which was obviously inspired by the popularity of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Tom Berenger was a young Paul Newman in Butch and Sundance: The Early Years. I don’t know which was cuter. I guess Murphy was more traditionally cute, where Berenger was more beautiful cute. If you can follow that. (I couldn’t find a picture of him from his Sundance era, but I came up with this.)
Roy Thinnes = The Invaders. What a hottie. A brooding hottie, fighting the aliens. I caught that show in Sci Fi a few years ago and he was something else.
Yes! “Death Takes A Holiday” was when I actually first discovered Monte Markham.
His made-for-TV movie was actually a remake of a previous movie, but I thought it was a good one. I think I was all of 14 years old when I saw it.
Nice brush with greatness, Kath!
Hehe…remarkably similar experiences here, lissener. I think I first got the inkling that I was “different” when I realized that watching Ron Ely as Tarzan made me feel all funny in my tummy.
Isn’t it nice to have a thead on an (gulp!) “old-time” (shudder) perfomer who’s not freshly dead? We should alert him: “Hey, Monte, there’s a bunch of middle-aged fans online who think you’re hot!”